


From Nowhere

by BurntKloverfield



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Fae Magic, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Style, Food, Jakku, Kisses, Kylo is a Goblin king/Phantom of the Opera/Howl type character, Magic, Possessive Kylo Ren, Protective Kylo Ren, Wishes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-22 17:25:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16602368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurntKloverfield/pseuds/BurntKloverfield
Summary: Rey is headed back to her lonely home one night, but instead ends up in a magical place with a curious man who just wants to feed her?





	1. Trying to Get Home

There was a story on Jakku of a fae, of a phantom, of a ghost, of a monster. He stole hearts and consumed souls. He sang arias and chilled bones. He was ruthless and terrifying, appearing in the night, stealing away naughty children and granting wishes to only benefit his own agenda. Woe to any child or young girl or wayward wanderer who would cross his path. 

 

Rey did not believe in the story. It was only a story. At least, that’s what she told herself when she stayed out too late, emerging from an empirical star destroyer long after the sun had set. She shivered and looked up at the stars, imagining visiting each one. A breeze reminded her of the dangerous frigid nighttime desert, and she returned to her speeder to head home. She hadn’t found enough for even a quarter portion that day. 

 

She knew the way home by heart, but she didn’t notice the strange way the sand beneath her was turning black. Not until she felt as if she had gone too far and adjusted her course and turned to find that the ground mirrored the sky above. The black sand sparkled in the moonlight, and Rey’s empty stomach twisted in fear. 

 

She jumped from her speeder and marveled at the sparkle beneath her feet, until a low, dangerous voice caught her. 

 

“What are you doing here, girl?” 

 

She looked up at the man—she thought it was a man—dressed all in black, looming over her. His eyes were dark and endless. His face was both young and old. His hair was wild, and his mouth looked ready to snarl or to play or to comfort, but each moment she tried to focus on him, he changed like how the stars would change with each twinkle in the sky. 

 

“Where am I?” She replied, not sure where she was to begin with. 

 

“My realm,” he rumbled, and she felt it deep in her soul. 

 

“I’m trying to get home,” she explained, turning to gesture to her speeder, which was now nowhere to be found. 

 

“Where is home, wanderer?”

 

“Jakku.” She frowned, trying to discover what had become of her transportation. 

 

“A little desert wanderer from nowhere.”

 

“I do need to get home. And I’ve lost my speeder.” She turned back to face the man. 

 

“It will come back in time,” he assured her. He approached with an open gloved hand. “Will you accompany me, wanderer? There is no way back to your nowhere until the sun has risen.”

 

She studied his hand, remembering the story, trying to place what she was supposed to do. Her stomach rumbled, and she grimaced, looking away. 

 

“You’re hungry. Are you not fed in your nowhere?”

 

She steadied her jaw. “I work for my food.”

 

He raised his eyebrows and stepped forward, his hand still outstretched. “Will you accept food as a gift?”

 

Rey‘s face softened, and she nodded, and she took his hand. 

 

It was surely magic that brought Rey and this man to an immense room in the blink of her eye. It sparkled like the night sky. Everything was crafted from dark stone or shimmering crystal, and Rey was sure the word she was looking for was ‘luxury.’ And in the center of the room was a banquet laid out with more food than Rey was sure she had consumed in her entire life. 

 

“I...I can’t take this...” she whispered. 

 

“Ah, yes, a mortal, of course. You would never be able to eat so much at once, my little guest.” He set a hand on her shoulder and nudged her to the table. “Eat what you want. Make yourself sick if you desire. None of this will go to waste.”

 

She let him guide her to the edge of the table, eyes traveling over everything. 

 

“Will you eat? Will you accept my gift, my guest?”

 

She blinked off the magic for just a moment. “Who are you?”

 

“My name would mean nothing to you.”

 

“I’m not sure I should eat. You are kind, but I do not belong here.”

 

“You can belong if you want to stay.”

 

“I need to get home.”

 

“This can be your home.”

 

She tore her eyes from the feast to study the man. “Why?” Her stomach rumbled again. 

 

The man took a fruit from the abundance, and held the morcel out to her. “I’ve watched you, Scavenger. You’re waiting for people to come back that never will. You’re letting yourself rot in your desert.” The fruit in his hand withered into dust. “Here, you can thrive.” The dust formed into a fruit, and then a vine sprouted from the stalk, and more fruit grew among the thickening leaves. “Eat, join me.”

 

“This is a trap.”

 

“This is your way out.”

 

“What if I say no?” She eyed the fruit, feeling her mouth water. 

 

He set the fruit and the vine back on the table and took a step away from her. “Then you will go back to your nowhere, and you will go nowhere, and all too soon, you will die in your nowhere.”

 

“How do you know!” She insisted, surprised at how sad his voice sounded. 

 

“I’ve watched you, Scavenger, your past, your future. You will die if you leave my realm.”

 

“And you think this is a kindness?”

 

He turned back to her with surprise in his eyes. He nodded earnestly. “Yes!”

 

Rey looked back to the food, suddenly remembering the rules: never eat, never sleep, return before the moon rises. “Are the stories true?”

 

“About what?” He stepped forward, curious. 

 

“About eating and sleeping and leaving?”

 

He resigned himself to plucking a fruit from the vine. “I should know. I broke every one.” He bit into the fruit and stared at the light flesh beneath. 

 

“Who are you?”

 

“Kylo Ren.”

 

The name from the stories. “The monster?” He didn’t look like a monster to her. 

 

“The man.”

 

“Then who is the monster?”

 

“The one who tricked me here.”

 

“And where are they?”

 

“Asleep.”

 

Rey’s stomach growled again, and she cursed the pain. 

 

Kylo Ren looked back to her. “He is no danger to you while I am near.”

 

“If I eat...”

 

“You will live.” He came to stand before her, bowed head and earnest eyes. “I am not lying. You’re waiting for nothing and nobody. They will not return. You will be dead before the dead come to find you.”

 

Rey clenched her jaw, but her stomach rumbled again, and she reached for the fruit he still held and pulled it to her mouth with both hands. 

 

“You choose to stay.”

 

“I choose a better life.”

 

She bit into the fruit properly, and she nearly cried at the sweet juice. She chewed and forced another bite to fill her mouth. 

 

“You have all the time to eat. You have all the food. It is going nowhere.”

 

“No it is not,” she insisted. “It is not going nowhere, and neither am I.”

 

He smiled at her. “I’m glad to hear that, wanderer.”

 

“I’m Rey.”

 

“Rey.”

 


	2. Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are good monsters and evil monsters, and you can never know which is which.

Kylo Ren insisted on taking care of Rey, and she wasn’t sure if she did mind. She finally had food. She was given a room and clothes. She was never hungry, never thirsty, never cold, never hot, and never alone. Kylo Ren was always near. He was in the room down the hall. He was peeking through doorways. He was by her side with something to entertain. This was his realm, his castle, his world. He ensured that his guest wanted for nothing. His castle was immense and looming, much like its owner. 

 

“What is your story?” Rey asked the third night she spent in the castle. 

 

Kylo Ren looked up from the stack of scrolls he was writing on. “What do you mean, Rey?” That she did mind. He seemed to adore her name. Anytime he addressed her, it was on his lips. 

 

She fiddled with a metal puzzle, trying to separate the rings from each other. “Why are you here? Where did you come from? Why did you chose to stay here? Why were you watching me?”

 

He nodded and returned to his scrolls. “I was a child. I was lured here, promised things I never received. I watched you, Rey, by accident. You were lonely and making wishes I could fill.”

 

Goosebumps traveled up her arms. “What wishes?”

 

“Your parents back. That one I can never fill, but others, Rey, food, water, relief of boredom, safety, a family, relief from your tedious life. And I have filled each...” His words slowed. 

 

“You said family...”

 

He swallowed. “I ...have not filled that wish yet.”  He let his eyes rest on his quil. 

 

“How would you fill that wish?”

 

“With myself, Rey, if you...wished it...”

 

She froze. 

 

“If you don’t want that, with me, you have no obligation.” His neck bobbed as he swallowed his nerves. 

 

She set the puzzle down and stood. “I hardly know you. Thank you for the food, and all the nice things, but I think I had better leave now.”

 

Kylo Ren nodded and stood. “I understand, Rey. I will show you the way.” He gestured to the doorway, and he led her through the hallways. 

 

As they traveled through the grandeur, Rey noticed one thing: when she had first come, it was all black stone and clear crystals and matte silver adornments, and now, gold embellishments were decorating the black stone walls, and cream fabrics fell from the ceilings, and warm yellow flowers stood sentry in ivory pots. 

 

“Where will you go, Rey?” Kylo asked, reaching a large set of double doors. “You are unable to return to your nowhere.”

 

Rey hadn’t thought of that. She had chosen to stay, but she didn’t know the world she had chosen. 

 

“May I accompany you to a settlement?” Kylo Ren asked. 

 

Rey nodded. 

 

“May I continue to grant your wishes, Rey?”

 

“I’d like to grant my own, actually.”

 

He smiled. “I think I can arrange that.”

* * *

Rey’s speeder had grown a mind of its own, now more of a pet than a piece of machinery. It served its purpose though, carrying Rey and Kylo Ren to a small settlement in a valley among the sparkling black sand, on the shore of an oasis, just as black. Kylo Ren took her hand as they dismounted the speeder. 

 

“Grant your own wishes, Rey,” he told her, pressing a ring with a cracked red stone into her hand. 

 

She turned the ring in the light. “Thank you,” she told him as she slipped the ring on her largest finger of her left hand, but it was much too large. She slipped it on the thumb, and it still was too big. She briefly ran it on each of her fingers in some vain hope that it would fit one digit. 

 

He chuckled. “Here.” He waved a hand, and a black ribbon formed in his palm, and he offered it to Rey. 

 

She slipped the ring onto the ribbon, and she went to tie it around her wrist. 

 

“May I?”

 

She nodded, and she held out her wrist. He wrapped the soft material around her arm, making sure that the ring was securely bound so that it wouldn’t move around as she worked. He tied it off in a simple knot. 

 

“How does this work?” Rey asked. 

 

“Make a wish.” He suddenly frowned and pulled a fruit from his pocket. “Hungry?”

 

She laughed and took it from his hand. 

 

“I believe that that is yours?” He pointed to the next hill over, where a light cottage had sprung up with a grove of fruit trees curling around it. 

 

Her eyes grew wide and she nodded. “It’s even more...”

 

“More than you wished for?”

 

She nodded. 

 

“Welcome to your new home, Rey.”

* * *

Her new life was simple and comfortable. She had her little cottage that was light and beautiful and fit her just right. She had her trees, and she started a garden full of the most gorgeous fruits and vegetables and flowers. Her speeder kept her company, puttering at her to go on a ride from time to time. 

 

She tried to make friends with those in the settlement, now that she had the time and energy, but they seemed skittish around her. She brought baskets and baskets of her fruit, at first to sell, but soon just to share. The little children, all too pale from not enough sun in this magical land, would take enough to fill their arms. The elderly would bring a handbasket. The next day, each would bring her a pie or a pastry or a bottle of preserves. 

 

“Too much for just me,” one old lady told her, when she handed her a basket overflowing with containers of marmalade. 

 

“Too much for me, too,” Rey whispered as the lady hobbled her way back to her own little cottage. 

* * *

Rey sat herself down at her table, chin in her hands, and she stared at the mass of food she now had no idea what to do with. It was all homey and comfortable, and it had all come from her own garden, in a round about way. 

 

A knock sounded at her door, and when she opened the door, Kylo Ren gave a smile in greeting. “Hello, Rey.”

 

She nodded. “Hello, Kylo.” She paused. She never had visitors, on Jakku or otherwise. “Would you like to come in?” 

 

He nodded and stepped inside. “Thank you.” His eyes lingered on the mountain of foodstuffs on her table. 

 

“I’ve been giving the other villagers fruit from my garden. They’ve been giving this back,” she told him with a wave of her hand. 

 

“That’s kind.”

 

“I feel like they’re afraid of me, though.” She took her seat at the table, and Kylo took one that seemed to appear from thin air to join her. 

 

“I wonder why that is.” He took a container of marmalade and examined the handwritten label. 

 

“I don’t know! I’m trying my best!”

 

He patted her hand and set the marmalade back with the pile of food. “You surely can’t eat it all. Would you like some help?”

 

She smiled. “If you insist.”

 

They both stood, and Rey set about her little kitchen. Kylo stood back, looming a little, finding that he didn’t know where she kept things. 

 

“Will you bring me one of the pies?” Rey asked. 

 

He nodded, took the top one, and brought it to the counter beside her. He worked the covering off, and placed it underneath the pie. 

 

Rey started to tell him what she knew about the little old lady who had made this particular one. 

 

Another knock came at the door, and Kylo Ren turned to answer it, as his hands were free. 

 

The door opened, and there was a pause, and then the small child screamed. 

 

Rey was immediately in the doorway, kneeling down to comfort the little girl. 

 

“I’m sorry. I should go,” Kylo dismissed himself. 

 

“No, stay?”

 

The little girl burst into tears as her fear got the better of her. 

 

“I really should go, Rey.”

 

“Don’t let him eat meeeeee!” The child cried. 

 

“He will not eat you, will you, Kylo Ren?” 

 

He stopped his retreat, and he turned. “I do not eat children,” he assured them. 

 

“But but...” she sniffled, pushing the cookware into Rey’s arms. It was still warm from the oven. “But f-f-f-five children have-v-v-v been eaten, j-j-just this mmmmmonth!”

 

Rey’s eyes widened in alarm up at Kylo Ren. “Who did this?”

 

Kylo Ren did not answer. 

 

Rey stood with the dish in her hands and the child on her leg. “Who is eating children?”

 

“Snoke.”

 

The child hiccuped and hid her face in Rey’s hip. 

 

“I will destroy Snoke,” Rey promised. “I am going to escort this child to her home, and you will be waiting for me when I get back.”

* * *

Kylo Ren was sitting at her kitchen table when she returned. 

 

“Who is Snoke?” Rey asked, taking her seat. 

 

“The monster who trapped me here.”

 

“And he is the one eating children?” Horror filled her face. “Why didn’t he eat you?”

 

He gently reached out and touched the ribbon around her wrist with the ring. “I was protected. I was powerful.”

 

“You gave me...”

 

He nodded. His eyes traveled up to hers, and she felt lost in the deep brown. She glanced down to his mouth and back up to his eyes. 

 

He leaned forward, slowly moving his face to hers. They held their breath until Rey closed the gap, pressing her lips to his across her kitchen table. 

 

He reached out to tug her closer, resting a hand at the nape of her neck. She stood, barely pulling away before moving around the corner of the table so she was leaning back in to kiss him. She rested both her hands where his chin met his neck, kissing his soft mouth again. 

 

His other hand found her waist, and he tugged her onto his lap. She fell against his chest, laughing. 

 

“Did you wish this?” Kylo murmured, brushing his lips against her cheek. 

 

“Why do you think that?”

 

“Wishes like this,” he explained, pressing little kisses to the corner of her mouth, “only come true when both are wishing the same wish.”

 

She pulled back and took in his earnest face.

 

“You’re embarrassed.”

 

“You wished to kiss me.”

 

“You wished not to be alone.”

 

She stumbled from his lap. “I didn’t mean for you to end up on my doorstep.”

 

“But you...” he shook his head and stood. “I should be going. I am a monster, Rey. It’s almost night. The children must be inside if they’re going to be safe from Snoke.”

 

Rey strode after him as he opened the door. The night was falling fast, and stars were already appearing in the sky. “What do you mean?”

 

He kissed her again, wrapping his arms around her. “The fearsome Kylo Ren steals children away if they’re outside at night,” he whispered as they parted. “No child will brave my threat. If there are no children out, there will be no children for Snoke.” He pressed his lips to hers a final time before finally pulling away. “Stay inside. Keep the ring on. You will be protected.”  He didn’t give her a chance to protest before he was heading down her hill, morphing into a large dark mass of teeth and eyes and terror. 


	3. Wishes Granted

Rey was absentmindedly putting jam on bread as she was thinking about the night before when her door was pushed open by an exhausted Kylo Ren. His eyes were dark, and he looked about ready to fall over. 

 

“Are you alright?” 

 

Kylo nodded, making his way to her sofa. “You wished me back.”

 

Rey followed him but paused at his words. “I...didn’t just wish you back...to me, did I?”

 

Kylo looked up at her from the sofa, exhausted and gaunt. Slowly, a spiderweb scar traced up his neck from under his collar and up over his cheek and eye and nose and forehead. Rey’s eyes flickered over him, over his face, over his eyes. She stepped forward and gently brushed her fingertips over the scar. 

 

“You’re freezing.”

 

“I’ve fulfilled your wish,” he murmured with a thick tongue and eyes losing focus. 

 

“Kylo? Are you alright?”

 

He gave no answer. His eyes became glassy, and he became limp. 

 

“Kylo? Kylo!” Rey screamed, taking his cheeks into her hands. The body gave no response. “I wish you back! I wish you alive! I wish that you’ll never leave me alone!”

 

“He’s no longer under your power, girl.” A shadow darkened her doorstep, and she dreaded showing her tearstained face. 

 

“Who are you?” She whispered, slowly standing and turning. 

 

The rising sun blinded her a moment before the creature stepped inside and shut the door. The living smoke curled around itself, sometimes solid, sometimes transparent. A pair of clear eyes studied her.

 

“You know my name.”

 

“Snoke.”

 

“I’ve come for what’s mine.”

 

Rey glared him down. “Kylo Ren is mine.”

 

“Kylo Ren is dead, and his soul belongs to me.”

 

A chill crossed her heart, and the empty eyed image of Kylo Ren traveled through her body to greet Snoke. 

 

“Child.”

 

Kylo Ren suddenly became younger, lithe, no longer a man, a boy not yet tried by time and magic. He was young, just in the cusp of change. 

 

“Kylo!”

 

He turned to look back at Rey with large scared eyes. 

 

“I wish you were mine.”

 

“I am the one who owns his soul, wanderer.”

 

“No, no.” She stumbled forward, unwrapping the ribbon on her arm. She tugged the ring from it and shoved it onto Kylo’s finger. He was a spirit before her, and she knew his body lay on her sofa behind her, but the ring anchored his soul to the spot, making him solidify. 

 

“You’re from a mortal world,” Snoke hissed, taking a deep breath through slim nostrils hidden somewhere in the swirling smokeloke semblance. “Fresh. Full of life.”

 

“You cannot harm me while Kylo is near,” she stated, trying to coax the soul to confirm the protection. The scared eyes only stared at her. “You told me,” she implored. “I wish that you would protect me.”

 

The ring glowed on his finger. He slowly took it off, but he moved as if he were in thick heavy water. He pushed it back into Rey’s hands. “Grant your own wishes, Rey.”

 

She turned back to the monster in her entryway and she charged it. “I will destroy you!” 

 

Snoke laughed until his form met the ring. Tendrils of burnt smoke rose from the impact, and the monster screeched. Rey lashed out again and again, wishing for luck and wishing for destruction and wishing for the monster to be gone. 

 

“Let me go!” It screeched. “Leave me be!”

 

“I will not! You underestimated me! And Kylo Ren!” 

 

Sorrow filled her heart as she beat Snoke back and away, destroying it bit by bit. Kylo Ren had given her his protection. If he had not, he would not be dead on her couch, he would not be a scared child’s soul watching her defeat the demon that finally destroyed him and came to consume him. 

 

A soft cold grasp ran through her shoulder, and Kylo’s quiet voice told her, “he’s gone.”

 

She blinked away tears. She was on her knees, beating a burnt black spot in her floor. 

 

“You’re dead!” She mourned, turning back to throw her arms around the spirit. She could feel the chill, but her arms moved through him. 

 

“You saved me.”

 

Rey could only sob, letting her arms fall. 

 

“You’re so lonely.”

 

Rey tried to wipe her tears away, but she was still holding the ring. She sniffled and sobbed harder now that she saw that the stone was shattered in two. “You risked yourself to protect me.” She threw the ring at the body on the sofa. “You died! Because you wanted to protect me! I don’t need to be protected or saved! I should have gone back to Jakku! I don’t want this pain!” She fell to her knees, sobbing, holding herself. 

 

Sunshine poured through a window, lighting her face, and she cursed the brightness. 

 

A knock came from the door, and Rey wailed for them to go away. 

 

The door opened slowly, and the little girl Rey had escorted home the night before peeked inside. 

 

“Go away!” Rey sobbed again. In her sorrow, she had failed to notice that the soul of her Kylo Ren no longer stood before her, leaving her alone. 

 

The little girl shook her head as she caught sight of the body on the sofa. “I needed to come say sorry for being mean to your betrothed,” she whispered. “Is he alright?”

 

Rey took no thought at the words, but she threw her own at the child. “He’s dead.”

 

The girl’s lip quivered, but she entered and threw her arms over Rey’s shoulders. 

 

Rey let her, pressing her forehead into the soft material of the girl’s dress. 

 

“I’m sorry we never became friends,” the girl told her. “We were all frightened of Kylo Ren. We saw his ring, and we knew you were his, and we were afraid of what he would do to us if we made you upset.” She patted Rey’s back, trying to copy the way her own mother comforted her. “Where is his ring? Have you denied him? You surely broke his heart!”

 

Rey pushed the girl away, tears still flowing. “I loved him. But I did not kill him.”

 

“You wished me back,” Kylo weakly sighed. 

 

“Are you sure your betrothed is dead?”

 

“He is!” She turned and scrambled across the floor to the sofa. She stared at him, his face, his chest, his lips. Was there movement?

 

“You wished me back,” his lips formed softly. 

 

Rey touched his cheeks and his chest and took a hand in hers. “You can’t be!”

 

He blinked his eyes and squinted at her. “Everything hurts.”

 

“Mister Kylo Ren?” The little girl stuttered. “I think...I wished...”

 

“What do,” Kylo groaned mid sentence, “you mean, little one?”

 

“I watched you,” she explained, “last night, from my window, fight the darkness. I saw you save the little boy in the alley from the monster. You protect us.” She fidgeted with her fingers. “I wished that you would be back with your Rey, because she is very kind, and I felt bad for thinking you were mean and scary, but you’re only mean and scary to keep us safe.”

 

“Thank you, little one.”

 

Rey pulled her into a tight hug, and the girl whispered, “I can’t breathe,” even though she hugged Rey back and put her face in her shoulder. 

 

“Can I come to your wedding?” The little girl asked, finally pushing away. 

 

“He hasn’t asked me yet,” Rey told her softly. 

 

Kylo held out the ring. “You have one last wish I’d like to fill.”

* * *

 

Fill it, he did. They were married the day Kylo could stand on his own. Being dead for any amount of time would take its toll on even the most powerful. 

 

But the were wed, and all the children cheered as they slipped the rings that each held a half of the magical wishing ring onto each other’s fingers. 

 

And neither was ever alone again. 


End file.
